Here’s a weird move by “National Treasure” director Jon Turteltaub: he’s going green—and I don’t mean box office green. In fact, quite the opposite.
The Jerry Bruckheimer-beloved director will take on a bigscreen project about the history of the Greenpeace movement, Variety announced. You know, the people that sent you letters about evil Norwegian hunters poaching baby seals and promised “I love Greenpeace” bumper stickers in exchange for a donation? That’s where the blockbuster director is headed. And rumors have it that “West Wing” scribe Aaron Sorkin may be joining him. Producers are in talks with Sorkin to pen a script informed by the books written by Greenpeace founders Bob Hunter and Rex Weyler.
It might go like this with Wyler’s book: “Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World” starring Nicholas Cage and The Rock. Or, with Hunter’s: “Warriors of the Rainbow: A Chronicle of the Greenpeace Movement” starring Vin Diesel and Ken Watanabe.
“We want to look at these unlikely heroes who became activists in spite of themselves,” producer Janet Zucker told the trade. “Jon likes to make a big adventure movies. And we’ve found that the best way to reach people’s hearts and minds is through entertainment.”
It’s difficult to imagine the audience for a film like this, which is slated to be a “big canvas pic with an environmental message.” There have been a slew of documentaries touting environmental awareness in recent years, including Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and the Leonard DiCaprio hemled “The 11th Hour” but fictionalizing an environmental advocacy movement doesn’t strike with the same authority. And did anyone actually see “The 11th Hour?”
Then again, you’ve got built in exotic locales, endangered sea creatures and the evil forces of the world conspiring to annihilate them all. It’s a save-the-whales version of national treasure.
